README for ChipCap version 2.0.1

(released December 16, 2002)

What is ChipCap?

ChipCap is an AVI capture utility, designed specifically for capturing animated solutions to the computer game Chip's Challenge. Here are some of its features:

• ChipCap's timer is synchronized to CC's timer, which eliminates most of the jerkyness found in AVIs produced by other programs like SnagIt.
  
  
• The AVIs are always written in 256 colors, even if you're capturing in 16- or 24-bit color, resulting in smaller file sizes.
  
  
• ChipCap was written in pure C, so it is very small and fast.

Note that since ChipCap is very specific to Chip's Challenge, it will probably not work for other programs. If you are looking for a more general AVI screen capture utility that works for all programs, try SnagIt, located at:
  <http://www.techsmith.com/>

Installation

Simply copy ChipCap.exe and ChipHook.dll into some folder on your hard drive, such as C:\Program Files\ChipCap\.

Using ChipCap

To start ChipCap, run ChipCap.exe. It will put itself in the system tray. All the functions of ChipCap can be accessed by right-clicking on the system tray icon.

To capture an AVI, start Chip's Challenge, and then either left-click on the system tray icon or press F11 on your keyboard. If all is well, the system tray icon will turn green and start flashing, and ChipCap will start capturing. When you're done, press F11 again to stop capturing. The AVI will be saved as "capture.avi", in the same folder that ChipCap is located in.

To select 5fps mode instead of 10fps, right-click on the system tray icon and select 5 Frames per Second before capturing your AVI. 5fps AVIs are smaller than 10fps AVIs, and can be even smoother for levels that don't have a lot of boosting.

To exit ChipCap, right-click on the system tray icon and select Exit ChipCap.

Tips

• If ChipCap is slowing the game down a lot, you may find that switching the display to 256-color mode significantly reduces this slowdown. To do this, go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Display > Settings > Colors. (Thanks to Warwick Anderson for reporting this.)

Known Bugs and Limitations

• Under Windows NT/2000/XP, ChipCap may not work properly in 5fps mode. Use 10fps mode instead for these versions of Windows.
• On some Windows XP computers, ChipCap slows down the game by an unusual amount. Your results may vary.

ChangeLog

2002-12-16: version 2.0.1

• Fix a big memory leak introduced in version 2.0.
• Use a 16-color palette instead of the 256-color palette used by version 2.0. This seems to result in a big speed increase. (Previous versions had used a 20-color palette, which had to be changed to get mouse capture to work.)
• Make mouse clicks more visible when mouse capture is enabled.
• Disable capturing from windows other than Chip's Challenge.
• Add warning about 5fps mode under Windows NT/2000/XP.

2002-12-10: version 2.0

• Read the game's timer directly in to distinguish even vs. odd ticks in 5fps mode. This makes 5fps AVIs of "odd-step mode" solutions much smoother. (Thanks to ccexplore for providing the information which made this possible.)
• Add option to capture the mouse cursor in the AVI, for solutions that require using the mouse.
• Stop capturing automatically when CC is closed.
• More bugfixes, including fixing minor problems with the popup menu.

2002-03-18: version 1.2

• Use RLE compression automatically, removing the need to prompt for compression options.
• Fix problems with huge file sizes.
• Possibly fix errors about missing exports.

2001-11-06: version 1.1

• Support for 5fps AVIs as well as 10fps.
• Added this README file.

2001-11-03: version 1.0.1

• Miscellaneous minor cleanups and bugfixes.

2001-10-12: version 1.0

• Initial release.

Author

ChipCap was written by Anders Kaseorg. My e-mail address is <anders@kaseorg.com>. You can post any questions or feedback to the Chip's Challenge newsgroup:
  <news://news.annexcafe.com/annexcafe.chips.challenge> (NNTP)
  <http://chips.kaseorg.com/newsgroup/> (WWW)

To browse through the library of AVIs created by Chip's Challenge fans, go to:
  <http://chips.kaseorg.com/avi/>
(Many of these AVIs were made before ChipCap was released, and were captured with SnagIt instead of ChipCap.)